Sunderland have been handed a tough start for their return to the Championship.

After ten successive seasons in the Premier League, the Black Cats were relegated last season and now face a long and strenuous campaign in the second tier.

With that brings an extra eight fixtures in the league, on top of any cup games, depending on progression.

While Sunderland will hope to make a quick start to get points on the board for the their promotion push, their start sees them play four fellow sides who will be hoping to challenge for one of three places available to ensure a return to the Premier League.

Read More

Kicking of the entire campaign on Friday, August 4 at home to Derby live on Sky, Sunderland will also host Leeds later that month in an intriguing clash. Sandwiched in between those two home ties are two away trips, first to Norwich and then to Sheffield Wednesday.

It will be interesting to see if that Norwich game is moved for TV - with Sky set to announce the rest of their first batch of TV games in early July.

As it currently stands, Sunderland play Bury away in the first round of the Carabao Cup and that one has been moved to Thursday for TV - less than 48 hours before their trip to Norwich.

Keeping up to date with the fixture list can be hard, but we’ve got the perfect solution. Download our calendar to your phone and games will appear on your device’s calendar. We’ll continue to update the schedule as games change and as further cup games are added. Once we update the calendar, it will automatically update on your phone; you won’t have to do a thing.